This video series sees International Adviser chat with second careerist financial advisers to discuss their journey into the advice sector.
In the video above, Emily Man talks about her move from producing filmed content and coaching in the creative industries to financial advice and the lessons she has learned from her transition in the sector.
Man is now a associate partner at St James’s Place Wealth Management.
Transcript:
[Robbie Lawther] Hi, I’m Robbie Lawther, senior reporter for International Adviser. This is another instalment of ‘Why I became a financial adviser. Today, we’re joined by Emily Mann. Thanks for joining us. First question would be, what did you do before financial advice?
[Emily Man] I started my life in production and I was in theatre, then radio, then film, then advertising. I was also an executive coach for 12 years.
[RL] Emily, a second question to you would be what made you choose financial advice as a sector?
[EM] I think it chose me. I was my twins were nine months old at the time. And I’d just come out of a full time job at Saatchi & Saatchi. Wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. And a very, very close dear friend of mine introduced me to a wonderful man called Mike Wilson. And Mike and I had a cup of tea and he said, Have you thought about financial planning? And I said, What’s that? And he proceeded to tell me. And I then started a month of intense research and realized that financial planning is very, very similar to producing film content. In as much as you have an individual or body of individuals who have a goal and they want, they have a vision and they want to deliver on that vision. And my job was as a producer to help them do that. As a financial adviser, it’s to help the individual do that. And I also have a deep rooted love of some Excel spreadsheets so that both of those things fitted together remarkably well to leave me straight into financial planning.
[RL] Emily, is there anything that surprised you about joining the financial advice sector you didn’t think helpful?
[EM] I think I thought that it would be maybe more stuffy. I thought it would be more, I mean, it is true there are a lot of men in financial advising. That’s true. And there aren’t an equal amount of women. But I thought it would feel more male dominated. So my practice is my practice, and I run it in the way that I want to run it. I don’t know that I really appreciated that I’d have that much independence over my own career trajectory as I’ve had my business trajectory as I’ve had.
[RL] Emily, what’s the most important lesson you’ve learned since joining the sector?
[EM] The most important lesson I’ve learned since joining financial services is to engage with one’s future self and to give them space and time to talk to you. It sounds a bit strange, but that’s what I spend my time doing for my clients, is to help them picture the person that they’re going to become and really engage with that person and not shy away or hide away from that with a fear of numbers or that it’s going to be too difficult or or simply impossible to in any way plan for that person, but allow them to to visualize and to speak to them. And that kind of time travel I never thought would be relevant in future planning and financial planning, but it’s absolutely central.
[RL] Emily, thank you for joining us. Thank you for taking the time out to do this.
[EM] My pleasure. Any time.
